Of course by now, we have all seen the headlines of Clarence Thomas’s gifts. More ‘scandals’ coming to light in the Supreme Court is causing a steady decline in the American people’s trust of the court and justices.
Only 25% of Americans currently have faith in the Supreme Court, according to this NY Times article. That is unsettlingly low for the highest court in the land that is supposed to be an unbiased final judge.
There is a lot of controversy over Justice Thomas’s acceptance of gifts from a wealthy Republican donor and failure to disclose them.
It will be fascinating to see if the Supreme Court can improve the public’s opinion of them, though they have no political or employment repercussions for acting in controversial manners.
To me what is so interesting about the discourse surrounding Justice Thomas is that people are more upset with the fact that he did not disclose the trips that he went on rather than the fact that he went on them at all. I’m not defending what Thomas did by any means, but I do think there is a willful ignorance many engage in when looking at the expenditures of these Justices, as during their summer vacation they all are jetted around the world by private donors and political backers. It is interesting to me that it seems the line for Americans is drawn not at whether or not these Justices go on these trips, but only at whether they disclose them! I think there ought to be an even more exacting standard in this respect…